EA UK May 2024
EAG London, reflections from MacAskill and FHI shutting down
EA Global London is happening in a few weeks and applications are closing soon. Around 1400 people are expected for the largest EA event in Europe this year.
Apply Here - Apply by 19th May
Given the number of people in London for the week before and after EAG it is a great opportunity to gather people interested in the same topics/causes/careers.
If you're interested in organising any satellite events around the conference, reply to this email or contact us via this form and we can help support events you want to see happen.
Upcoming Events
If you're interested in hearing about events each week check out our events page.
London
1st May - Routes to Impact in Policy
2nd May - Addressing climate inequality - Esther Duflo - LSE
4th May - GWWC London Spring Picnic
11th May - Christians for Impact
13th May - PauseAI Rally
14th May - UK's Techno-Optimist Cause Areas - Future House
16th May - Farmed Invertebrate Welfare Workshop
May/June 2024 - EA Global: London
3rd June - AI, Animals, and Digital Minds Conference and retreat
For social events there are the EA London WhatsApp groups
UK
16th May - Atkinson Memorial Lecture 2024 - Daron Acemoglu - Oxford
12th June - Parfit Memorial Lecture 2024 - Theron Pummer - Oxford
June/October - EA for Christians Retreat - Interest form (Oxford/Cambridge)
September - Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk
Virtual
2nd May - GWWC Online:May - Interview with Pepijn Vloemans: the success of the Ten Percent Club
23rd May - Virtual AI Safety Unconference
2nd May - GWWC Online:May
27th May and ongoing weekly discussions - Apply by May 5th
Conferences
31st May - 2nd June - EAG: London
5-7th July - EAGxUtrecht
16-18th August - EAGxToronto
7-8th September - EAGxBerkeley
13-15th September - EAGxBerlin
1st-3rd November - EAG Boston
Community News
If you wanted to get an overview of EA in the UK and ways to get involved you can sign up for a 1-1 here, there is also a community directory of people happy to chat
Amber Dawn - I'm offering cheap coaching
JWS - What's in a GWWC Pin?
Katy Glass interviewing Sofya Lebedeva on pursuing ambitious projects in biosecurity
Adam Howes - Advice on doing a PhD
Sofia Balderson, Constance Li and Haven King-Nobles with presentations last month in London on animal welfare
At the animal welfare event (as with most photos attempting to catch me, you can only see the side of my head)
Latest Jobs
If you want to discuss your career options with someone from EA UK, you can sign up here.
Global Development
Open Philanthropy - Global Aid Policy - 12th May
Malaria Consortium
Data Analyst - 5th May
Fundraising Officer - 12th May
Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist - 13th May
Lead Exposure Elimination Project - Director of Research and Strategy - 3rd June
GiveWell (London/Remote)
Family Empowerment Media
Animal Welfare
UK Animal and Plant Health Agency
Service Developer - 6th May
The Humane League - Major Gifts Fundraiser - 16th May
ProVeg Kickstarting for Good - Impact Entrepreneur - 26th May
Biosecurity
The Nuffield Council of Bioethics
Governing Board Member (4/5 days a year)
Chair of the Governing Board (7/8 days a year)
BlueDot Impact
Emerging Technology
Longview Philanthropy
Google DeepMind - AGI Safety Manager - 6th May
Nuffield Council on Bioethics - Horizon Scanning Coordinator - 7th May
Epoch AI
University of Kent - Post-Doc in Moral Psychology of AI - 24th May
Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
AI Safety Institute
Research Engineer - Evaluations - 28th August
Senior Research Scientist for Foundational AI Safety 28th August
Research Scientist - Evaluations - 28th August
The Future of Life Foundation - Project Lead/Founder - Windfall Trust
Frontier Model Forum
Leap Labs - ML Researcher
Atla - Alignment Research Engineer
Evals Research Scientist
Research Engineer
Research Lead
China Talk - China + AI Analyst
BlueDot Impact - AI Safety Specialist (Technical)
Anthropic
Research Engineer, Alignment Science
Research Engineer, Model Evaluations
OpenAI - European AI Safety Policy Lead - Technical
Meta EA
Open Philanthropy - People Operations Associate - Immigration and Global Workforce - 15th May
Impact Ops - Recruitment Specialist 19th May
The Centre for EA - EA Global Program Lead - 3rd June
Probably Good - CEO/Executive Director
Charity Entrepreneurship - Director of Outreach
80,000 Hours - Expressions of interest - Writer/Researcher
Other
Our World in Data - Writer - 12th May
Voluntary research support - Reducing the risk of Great Power War
Metaculus - Full-Stack Engineer
Fellowships & Programs
Biosecurity Fundamentals - Pandemics Course - Apply by 5th May
Hi-Med's Career Fellowship - 12th May
Newspeak House - Introduction to Political Technology
Open Philanthropy - Career development and transition funding
Latest Research and Updates
Top Posts
Pablo - Future of Humanity Institute 2005-2024: Final Report
William MacAskill - Personal reflections on FTX
Rebecca Kagan - Quick Update on Leaving the Board of EV
Mathias KB - Priors and Prejudice
Meta
Joel Tan - EA Meta Funding Landscape Report
Abdurrahman Alshanqeeti - Introducing EA in Arabic
Richard Y Chappell - What "EA" Means to Me
Kenneth Diao - Things EA Group Organisers Need To Hear
Richard Y Chappell - When anti-EA resemble anti-vax (anti-philanthropic misdirection)
Motivation gaps: Why so much EA criticism is hostile and lazy
Patrick Gruban has joined the EV UK board
Effective Giving
GWWC - Considering pledging but haven't? Help us understand!
How parents can help to introduce ideas of effective giving to young people
Effektiv Spenden have passed the €60 million donations mark
Careers
Probably Good - Core Advice for Having a Positive Impact With Your Career
80,000 Hours - Particularly impactful career paths you might have overlooked
Eli Nathan - Why you might be getting rejected from (junior) operations jobs
Lynette Bye - How Much Career Exploration Is Enough?
Grants
Open Philanthropy added 159 grants for $179m to their database
EA Funds made 61 grants for $2.5m
$1.8m - Long-Term Future
$400k - Animal Welfare
$240k - EA Infrastructure
Global Development
For more in depth updates I also write the Global Development & EA newsletter.
Global immunisation efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years
Open Philanthropy - Development through Economic Growth
Rachel Glennerster - The Pandemic Financing Developing Countries Need
I have a write up on the current landscape of global development & EA
Animal Welfare
For more comprehensive animal news I recommend Impactful Animal Advocacy.
80,000 Hours Podcast - Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be good or bad for animals
May 7th deadline to give feedback on the UK Mandatory Welfare Label Scheme
Charity Navigator now has a recommended charities list for animal welfare in partnership with ACE
Announcing The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness
Farmed Animal Funders is soliciting proposals for pooled fund ideas that will fill unmet, yet high-impact, charitable intervention playing a critical role in the movement to end factory farming. Proposals due by May 31st
Alternative Proteins
GFI - Alternative protein research grants - 23rd May
Republican-led U.S. states are looking to ban lab-grown proteins
Tälist’s have launched an Alt Protein Careers Navigator
Global Catastrophic Risks
Jamie Harris - Reasons for optimism about measuring malevolence to tackle x- and s-risks
Tom Chivers - Asteroid spotting
FLI Podcast - Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War - a Second by Second Timeline
Biosecurity
GCBR Organisation Updates - my recommendation for updates on biosecurity
White House publishes framework for Nucleic Acid Screening
The Asia Centre for Health Security has been established in Singapore
Conrad K - How Well-Funded is Biosecurity Philanthropy?
Environment
Charity Navigator now has a recommended charities list for Climate Change Mitigation in partnership with Giving Green
Ken Opalo - Energy poverty is very bad for humans and the environment
Rethink Priorities - Climate philanthropy landscape
AI Safety
For more regular updates I recommend the AI Safety Newsletter.
ARIA - Safeguarded AI - Backed by £59m, this programme aims to develop the safety standards for transformational AI
80,000 Hours Podcast - Zvi Mowshowitz on sleeping on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI updates since ChatGPT
New online course developed by Dan Hendrycks - Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society
AI Governance
UK & United States announce partnership on science of AI safety
Holden Karnofsky - Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The US Department of Homeland Security announced the establishment of the AI Safety and Security Board
Securing Canada’s AI advantage - Includes a new Canadian AI Safety Institute, with a $50m budget
Progress, Innovation & Metascience
Open Philanthropy and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have £5m for UKRI metascience research grants
Examples of Highly Counterfactual Discoveries?
Nature - Scientists rise up against statistical significance
Longtermism
Matthew Rendall - Extinction risk and longtermism: a broader critique
Fin Moorhouse - Goodbye to FHI
Nature - What’s next for ‘deep future’ research?
Leah Pierson - Accounting for future populations in health research
What novel, actionable advice does longtermism offer?
FTX
Rob Bensinger - Why hasn't EA done an SBF investigation and postmortem?
Understanding FTX's crimes
Spencer Greenberg podcast with Will MacAskill - What should the EA community learn from the FTX / SBF disaster?
Other Causes
Fin Moorhouse - Anthropic reasons for digital mind scepticism?
The State of Forecasting: Dynamics, Challenges, Hopes
Bryan Walsh -Why the death of the honeybee was greatly exaggerated
India-China-US Relations in an Era of Strategic Competition
Stories & EA Around the World
Bishop - Guilt at EA
Oliver Sabot - In Defense of a Humble and Human EA
EAGxLATAM 2024: Retrospective
EAGxLATAM - Mexico City
Good News
Nepal's poverty rate fell from 25% to 3.6% between 2011 and 2023
In 15 years, Rwanda has increased its electricity access to 75% from 6% in 2009
Max Roser - Thanks to improvements in global health, more than 130 million children have been saved since 1990
